


Fetch

by Starchart



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, One Shot, Post-Sirius Black in Azkaban, Sirius Black as Padfoot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-05-25 15:28:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14980085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starchart/pseuds/Starchart
Summary: Sirius isn't quite a dog, but retains some dog attributes, which Azkaban pulled to the front. This is an exploration of Sirius's life after escaping Azkaban through that lens, drawn in broad strokes.





	Fetch

The man sat in the darkness. Then the dog. Then the man. On and on until all sense of time was lost. In brief moments of lucidity, the man would stare at the hard, smooth flagstone floor of his cell. It brought back a memory, he was sure of it, but in the cold mists of Azkaban, it was impossible to recall what memory. It was a warm, sun-drenched memory, full of laughter. _They_ would never allow that. Never fully. But running. The man could sometimes remember that much. 

The dog was never that lucid.

It was the longing for running, for the chase, this time of the traitor, of the rat, that the man, the dog was able to gather his wits enough to escape.

And then the dog ran, swam, ran, then ran again, back to England. The happy memory called up by the floor of the cell was lost for a time. The chase was on, but it was a frustrating chase. It was a chase where the quarry evaded using cheap tricks and lies. It was a chase filled with dark nights and missed meals. The chase was everything, sustaining the dog past what he should have been able to endure.

But even through obsession, old love cannot be denied fully. So the dog sat and watched the James-not-James, his _godson_ —remember that word, remember that idea—without fully knowing why. The memory came back, a bit. It was a summer day. James laughing. The dog had been a dog then, not a man, but somehow had still felt so much more _human_. The memory of that time called to mind what had been lost. Harry (that was his name, how could you forget?) was too painful to watch for long. 

The chase called, but it did not call in the wild free way it once had, the way it called in the memory. It called with the madness of grief, the siren's song of destruction. Destroy the traitor, then it does not matter if you are destroyed yourself. The godson's innocent face called up memories of that innocent time, was too hard to bear.

And so the dog left. He followed the quarry, single-mindedly. He met the cat. The cat wasn't to chase. The cat was for aid in the chase alone. That much the dog knew, though the aid fell somewhat into companionship. But the cat would help find the quarry. And so they searched together. But even then the dementors were nearby and the mists would not let the dog rest.

And then, the dog saw its chance. The boy, with the James-not-James was carrying the rat, with the hands that would not let the rat escape, the hands that the dog did not have. So the dog grabbed the boy, and that day he won the rat.

And so the dog became a man, and was left to deal with the consequences. And he did, muddling through them.

And then he was there, the old friend, Remus. The embrace brought back memories of memories. Happiness, peace. But the details were vague. Fuzzy. Lost.

And there was so much hope, so much happiness. Harry promised to come live with the man, and the man finally dared to dream of a home. Home? Was that the memory. It began to come to the fore, the details still tantalizing and vague, but he could remember the way he had felt that day.

And then, then it was over. The wolf was out. Remus was gone. And then the rat was gone too. The quarry lost in favor of something much more precious, Harry. But that didn't matter in the end. And then the man who was the dog sat in a room, conscious of failure and waited, waited for it all to be over.

But then somehow James-not-James, somehow Harry was there. Flying on a giant bird, a hypogriff, the name half remembered from school lessons long ago. And then the man went on the run.

The dog went on the run as well, almost as an afterthought. The warmth of the sun in the tropical isles was no comfort though. Memories returned, but that one memory was still lost, still just out of reach. No one, the man thought then, can truly escape Azkaban. The dog in the man objected, whined pitifully, but no one heard.

And then the man saw that he was needed and came back to England. But it wasn't quite the same. And then the man, the dog lived in the cave, hoping for some chance to see his godson again. The year came and went. The man, the dog, got used to his new existence. It was hard. There was often not enough to eat, and the winter was cold. But it was free. There was sky above his head, dirt beneath his feet. Everything was alive, and even if the dog didn't feel it always, there was the constant reminder of that freedom. Dogs didn't need to feel as much. And though the man was there too, worrying, the dog was there most of the time. It was peaceful, quiet. Old memories of running through the forrest on full moons returned. He lived in the past. It was easier there, happier.

And then, then he moved away. Moved back. Back to the house with the stifling walls, back to the place he had always hated. It was for his godson. Wasn't it? For the order. Perhaps. Fighting a war he had long since tired of, but unable to act. He became a man again, full of human cares.

The world narrowed, and he grew tired, restless. He missed the wide open forest. He missed the memories. His godson was there. He tried to be there, tried. The gulf of years separated them. Harry was not the baby the man remembered him as. Talking to Harry was what the man always yearned to do, but it always felt like speaking a half-remembered language.

And so the man became a dog again, to walk Harry off to school. It was ... it was exhilarating. The language of dogs is easier, harder to forget how to speak. Harry can laugh at the dog's antics, even when the man worries that he cannot be there for Harry.

The dog tries, briefly, to be a man, putting his paws on the boy's shoulders. A boy and a dog. Always together. The man knows of such things. But that even may be too much. The dog is scolded. The man inside wants to yell, wants to scream, but such words are beyond him.

He spends his time with the bird he had flown away on. It is easier. Easier to be with the bird than to be with humans, than to be with Kreature. The humans want him to be a human. He can't quite be that, not just yet. It is tiring, the effort and the knowledge of failure. The house elf wants a master, bold and daring and proud. The man knows he cannot live up to that, has never wanted to be that, not even before. Buckbeak asks for nothing. He does not like the house either, and in that way they relate.

Remus is often there. Remus is quiet, is willing to sit together. Sometimes the man can talk to Remus, and Remus will listen. Sometimes Remus simply strokes the head of the dog. Remus doesn't ask the man to be any more than he can be, doesn't mind seeing the dog when the man can't come out. But Remus often can't be there. He has to work, to work for the Order, to work to support himself. The man sometimes argues, cites his fortune, asks what the point of being the last of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black is if he cannot support even his closest friend. He yells at those times. But it changes nothing. There is no point. Remus knows that family fortune is gone, and the man knows it too. The dog doesn't know enough to care for this, and in those times, after Remus leaves, the man fades away and the dog simply sits by the door and whiles away the time until his family comes back.

The days pass into a blur of food, sleep, meetings, and talking. Sometimes the man can force himself to read, but he does not like to in general. He can't be the dog too often here, either. They expect him to be human, to be everything they are, even when he can't be. And though the man has given Harry the mirror, the mirror the man and James used to talk on when they were children together, Harry never calls. It doesn't hurt the man much anymore. He knows that he is no longer good at conversation. And when Harry calls through the fireplace, the man is all too happy to talk to him, and doesn't even think to ask about the mirror. When the man thinks back on the conversation later, he knows that is simply yet another conversation gone wrong, and almost feels glad that Harry has never called.

Today, the man thinks, it will be no different than any other day. Today, Remus had to leave directly after the Order meeting. Work, he said. But today, he has pressed a small object into the man's hand while bidding farewell. The man looks at it after Remus has left. Yellow-green. Round.

Memories begin to tickle the back of the man's head. He holds the small ball, and thinks. Something is wrong with the situation. He recognizes the rough feel, but something is wrong. The wrong way to hold this somehow?

Slowly, the man walks up the stairs, up to the attic. Buckbeak is there. He pauses on the top step. He looks at the ball in his hand. Slowly, the memory returns. James laughing and throwing a ball, on the patio, the rough stone flagstones under the pads of the dog's feet, _Padfoot's_ feet, the first time he thinks it that the name feels _right_ , the first day that the man, boy then, ran away from this place. The first day that the dog came home. _Fetch._

The man laughs, and tosses the ball down the stairs. The dog runs after it, and for the moment, the happy barking drowns out both the screams of the awakened portrait and Molly Weasly's frustrated yelling. He feels the roughness in his mouth that feels so right as he runs back up the stairs, setting it down on the top step. The man, smiling, stoops to pick it up and throws it again, and the dog gleefully runs after. In this moment, the memory has at last returned and Sirius, the man, the dog, the person who is both at once, is happy.


End file.
